Not a Hero
by Zyura Kailaidrianina
Summary: After the war, people celebrate their victory over Kaguya, the White Zetsu army, and the breaking of the Infinite Tsukiyomi. But not Sakura. Sakura had a job to do. For Naruto, Kakashi and Sasuke were the heroes, not her. Set after Fourth Great Shinobi War.


Heroes.

That's what people called them.

Heroes, saviors, hope.

With the end of the Fourth Great Shinobi War, people turned to Naruto and hailed him as the hero of the Fourth Great Shinobi war. As the original jonin sensei of the infamous team 7, Kakashi was praised as his instructor and for his own efforts during the war that brought about his induction as the sixth Hokage of Kohona. Even Sasuke, who was a traitor, a murderer, an S-class missing-nin, was grudgingly celebrated for helping Naruto to defeat Kaguya and her army and helping to end the infinite Tsukiyomi, freeing everyone from their genjutsu prisons.

Sakura was honored as their teammate and in her healing of the shinobi after their fights and for assisting the Fifth Hokage in implementing her long distance healing jutsu during the war, but that was all. At best, her own achievements were downplayed; at worst, they were completely overlooked.

As she knew they would be.

Her teammates and old sensei were hailed almost as gods. She was only given some renown as their teammate and as the fifth Hokage's apprentice.

Naruto, Sasuke and even Kakashi were considered to be the heavy hitters, the heroes, and her efforts, in the eyes of the masses, were just considered to be her doing her job, and that she had just assisted Tsunade in healing the entirety of the allied shinobi forces.

But while it bothered her, she didn't let it show. Unlike Naruto and Sasuke and even Kakashi, she was used to not being the best, she was used to being overlooked and her skills being downplayed. It was an almost universal truth that every kunoichi must contend with, and with such famous, powerful people surrounding her, she lived this truth every second of her life.

* * *

She wiped the sweat from her forehead and rocked back on her heels, feeling the world sway slightly around her. She had not slept properly since before the war, and since then she was only able to catch an hour here and an hour there between her work at the hospital, helping Tsunade and Kakashi with paperwork, and her work in the field.

The war may be over, but her job was not done. The heroes got to rest after their triumph over the enemy, got to have their wounds treated and their meals brought to them, have flowers and gifts delivered every day and got to bathe in the glory of being a victor.

And Sakura? She continued to work. Every day it was healing the injured and assisting in the transition between the two Hokage. At night she was out on what had been a battlefield, a killing field, just weeks ago, digging through the rubble in search of those who had fallen in battle. Each night, she collected the bones and mangled remains of the shinobi who had died, gathered up their weapons and jewelry and belongings, and tried to piece them back together. She sorted and rearticulated the bodies, sewing them back up as best as she could so that an identification could be made.

For those too badly mangled, with missing flesh or broken almost beyond repair, she poured over them, checking against secure medical records from each village, returning their identities to them so that they could be sent home for burial.

It was difficult to remain professional and detached when the bodies turned out to be from the other hidden villages.

It was even more heartbreaking when they were from Kohona.

It was devastating when she knew them personally.

Neji Hyuuga, Shikaku Nara, Inoichi Yamanaka; they had been particularly difficult finds. She had broken down when she had found them, had silent tears sliding down her cheeks as she sewed them back together, spending twice as much time on them as she did on the others to make sure that they looked as if they were just sleeping, and placed her signature on each of their death certificates. She had spent time with each and every one of them, and she had been unable to work just after sending them home. She had cried silently for hours before she had done something she had never thought possible.

She shut down her emotions. Just tied them up in a knot and tossed them into the farthest recesses of her mind where they could not distract her, could not influence her. She had a job to do and it needed to be done.

She continued to dig, her mind blank, features determined but empty. This had been one of the impromptu medical sites that had been set up during the war, and it had been one of the only ones that hadn't been completely demolished. As she uncovered more and more people that she had known, that she had fought beside, healed beside, during the war, she refused to allow herself to feel anything. She knew that if she did, it would destroy her, and she would be useless to those who needed her once again.

She refused to be that weak, useless person anymore.

* * *

It was weeks before anyone really noticed the changes in her. And even then, it took many more weeks for them to actually be concerned.

Sakura was a medic, one of the top three medics in all of the land, and her friends knew that she still had work to do after the war, vital work that only she could do. But as the days turned into weeks, and the weeks turned into months, they began to worry.

Anyone could tell just by looking at her that she was not sleeping or eating properly. But whenever they tried to confront her about it, she just shrugged or laughed them off. She was fine, she told them, they were overreacting, of course she was getting sleep, her work was just tiring is all. She appreciated their concern but there was no need for it.

They believed her.

Almost.

After watching her almost fall dead asleep in her barbeque and then later stumble down the streets back home, her friends went to the Hokage, both the former and current, to demand that they let her take a break. They got an answer that they weren't expecting.

Kakashi and Tsunade said that they had already forbidden Sakura from working at the hospital since she almost fell asleep during a simple surgery a week ago. Sakura also had no active missions and hadn't been assigned one since just after the war.

This confused them. If she wasn't working, why was she so tired? If she was free from hospital work and missions, why wasn't she resting? They couldn't figure it out.

So the next day they all followed her, to the grocery store, to the weapons store, to her house and to the park. They saw her sharpen her tools, eat a picnic lunch and take a nap in the shade of a large sakura tree. This continued for the next two days, and they finally gave up, seeing as Sakura seemed less tired with each passing day. These self-assigned missions had satisfied them that Sakura was alright, and that she was just catching up on her rest at her own pace. So they stopped following her.

Well, almost all of them.

Sai knew from experience that Sakura was faking it; he did spend a lot of time with the pink haired girl, and knew when she was hiding something. However, unlike everyone else, he didn't want to stop her from doing whatever was running her ragged; he just wanted to understand and support her. So he kept watching.

Shikamaru knew this girl almost as well as he knew his own mother. He spent too much time napping not to be able to recognize when someone was faking. Granted, she was faking sleep well during those 'naps' under the sakura trees, but it didn't fool him. So he kept watching.

Shino, quiet, serious Shino, could tell that the medic's chakra levels were extremely low, too low to support her seemingly leisurely days of rest. His insects could sense it on her, could tell by the dirt under her nails and the dust coating her skin, that she was spending time outside of the village. The signs were so miniscule that Shino couldn't fault Kiba, Akamaru and Hinata for not noticing the small changes in the kunoichi. Shino, however, had spent most of his childhood in the background, observing others, so the obvious thing to do in this situation was to do what he had always done. So he too kept watching.

And the effect was instantaneous. The moment she was no longer aware of being watched (many of her year mates were awful at disguising their chakra completely), Sakura's routine drastically changed. It hadn't even been a day when Sai, Shino, and Shikamaru caught her leaving the village just after sunset. She had waved to the gate guards, Izumo and Kotetsu, as cool and casual as could be. They waved back, not even bothering to check her mission orders that required her to leave the village.

That made their interest peak. That would mean that this nighttime escapade was a normal occurrence. They followed her, careful to keep themselves hidden. She ran at full speed of almost an hour before she stopped in a large clearing. Sai, Shino and Shikamaru could see that this was some kind of medical camp.

They watched as Sakura shed her cloak and donned an apron and gloves before disappearing into one of the tents. The three shinobi watched their friend as she flicked in and out of the tents, sometimes carrying stacks of paper, sometimes weapons. They didn't know what to think of it.

Shikamaru started when a hand came down on his shoulder. They all turned to face the Kazekage and his siblings. Temari tightened her hold on Shikamaru's shoulder. "Oi, what are you doing skulking around here?"

"Temari, what are you doing here? I thought you went back to Suna."

Temari rolled her eyes. "I did, and now I am here as the Kazekage's escort."

"Escort?" Shino asked.

"What is this place?" Sai asked, his eyes returning to the pink haired medic who had just exited one of the tents and was rifling through a stack of documents. "What is Ugly doing here?"

Gaara frowned. "Sakura didn't tell you?" They shook their heads. "Then maybe she didn't want you to know." He left it at that, turning on his heel and walking out of the trees towards the pink haired medic, Kankuro in his wake. Temari stayed where she was.

"She really didn't say anything, did she?"

"Say what?" Shikamaru grabbed her hand and held on tight. "What is she doing here Temari?"

"The Hokage said that she has no missions and that she is not assigned to work at the hospital or with patients," Sai added, his voice confused and concerned. "So what is she doing all the way out here?"

"We followed her because we were worried." Shino added quietly.

"Temari, please."

The Sand kunoichi sighed. "Alright." She turned to look at the pink haired medic, and they followed her gaze. Sakura was bowing to the Kazekage and offering him a stack of papers. "Sakura has been out here almost every night since the war." The three shinobi started at that. She had been sneaking out for almost a year?

"But what-?"

"She has been scouring the battlefield with some of the other medics, searching for those who died in the war." That shut them up. "She called us here today to say that she had gone through all of the dead that had been found, and that she would like us to come here to retrieve our fallen shinobi."

"Then those papers must be death certificates." Shino mused aloud.

Temari nodded. "She has already finished with identifying all of the current bodies at this and the last four sites. Now all that's left is to package them up for transport and to present the Kage with the certificates of death. The other Kage and their representative will be here later this week."

"But if she was working on retrieval, why did she not tell anyone?" Shino asked.

Shikamaru sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. "She probably didn't want us to worry, and with everything else she has done in the village, she probably didn't want to be ordered to stop helping."

Sai nodded. "Ugly will not stop until she either keels over, or dies in the process. But I am surprised that she has been doing this for weeks with almost no sleep. Is she even human?" He mused aloud.

"Human or not, she knows what she is doing, so don't try to stop her." Temari warned. "She will only hate you for it." She saw Kankuro making the sign to move out. "I have to go. But I will tell you one thing that she told me when I asked her why she was doing this, instead of celebrating with her team." The boys turned to her, their attention undivided. "She said that she was not a hero, her team was. Her job was much more important."

Before they could ask her what she meant by that, Temari had gone. Sai, Shino and Shikamaru watched Sakura for a few more hours before they turned around and headed home. If Sakura was so desperate to keep this a secret, then they would respect her wishes, though they would still keep an eye on her. It was the least they could do.

* * *

Sakura felt her three friends leave, and gave a small smile. They had been very stealthy until Temari had found them. Whatever the kunoichi had said to them had obviously hit home, since they only watched her for only a while longer before disappearing and heading back home. She had faith in that they wouldn't tattle on her to Tsunade and Kakashi, nor would they harp on her about her secret, self-assigned mission. She had come to a realization weeks ago, when she had been officially pulled off this job detail.

She would never be the hero that everyone knew, that people would remember for decades to come, that would get monuments and parades and awards and fame. She would remain in the background, doing what needed to be done.

Her teammates were the heroes.

She was the one who would make sure that everyone, dead or alive, made it home once again.


End file.
